coralie lyford
TITLE: A radical adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, re-centered around Ophelia’s timeline, in which Ophelia and Hamlet swap actions and text.
As a director, I love breaking down the gender of the characters and swirling it around until a new story emerges. I often imagine what plays could look like if characters swapped gender expressions, and how that could influence the audience’s understanding of the piece and the societal connotations.
I want Hamlet to begin by the river next to a willow, the location of Ophelia’s final death in the original piece. Ophelia sits, for quite a while, legs in the water, thinking. Hamlet enters with his “too, too sullied flesh” monologue, pitiful, almost comedic, as Ophelia surveys him. Perhaps he grabs onto the trunk of the willow tree and slides down: “frailty thy name is womannnn.” For Hamlet, it’s very, very real; for Ophelia it’s like she’s watching a mildly entertaining television show. Immediately, the audience is drawn to Ophelia’s ability to take in her surroundings; she is their ally, she is their “everyman.”
When I first read Hamlet, I was struck by the similarities between Hamlet and Ophelia. Their parallel experience of grief for their fathers is intrinsically human and therefore quite similar, and they’re both surrounded by people calling them mad. Yet, Ophelia’s lack of material encourages performances of her to be psychologically flat, while Hamlet is written to experience a multitude of emotions. Amongst them, his anger stands out to me especially, as I feel it’s one of the most common experiences of grief. Above all, the play makes me hunger for female rage.
I think that Hamlet is one of the best plays ever written, the humanity in it is so raw, the language is captivating, and the story unforgettable. That being said, to keep outdated plays relevant to today’s audience, they have to be revamped. Re-centering the story around Ophelia, and giving her more material will reinvent the show while maintaining Shakespeare’s language and imagery. I want to encourage a modern audience to relish this play, along with female anger and plurality in feeling.
Reattributing some of Hamlet’s material to Ophelia will allow her to express more diverse emotions, while Hamlet’s feelings can be simple. It’s hard for me to find value in Ophelia’s overwhelming sadness as written because it’s seen in so many female characters that it has lost its meaning and truth. Reassigning this experience to Hamlet will shine a new and interesting light on it.
While he represents a history of emotionally simplistic female characters, my Hamlet will be honest. I think highlighting the part of Hamlet that’s just a depressed drama queen, wreaking havoc and overthinking everything, will be extremely satisfying for some audience members. For others, it will instigate conversations about reductive stereotypes. I want them to leave thinking Why was he getting made fun of? Why is she the hero? It will encapsulate what it feels to see someone like you simplified and objectified, while someone else gets to be a badass.
The physicality of my production is dramatic, at times dance-like, tela-novela-esque, or incredibly still. Ophelia’s story unfolds in six main actions, everything else is as written.
1. The play begins with Ophelia by the Willow. After experiencing Hamlet’s meltdown she tells him she’s seen his father’s ghost. She is there when Hamlet is commanded to get revenge on his uncle.
2. The players arrive. Hamlet is a useless emotional mess. Ophelia decides to take it into her own hands and tells the players to perform the king and queen’s sinful behavior.
3. Plonius and the King still try and use Ophelia to investigate Hamlet (Ophelia’s orchestration of everything has gone unnoticed). Ophelia performs “to be or not to be,” and a swapped version of the “get thee to a nunnery” scene; Hamlet rejects her and she goes ballistic.
4. Hamlet kills Ophelia’s father. She feels both grief and happiness. She sings, she cries, she dances, she screams. Hamlet is there, and in a dream-like way mirrors her movements.
5. Ophelia digs by the river and finds the skull of Yorick; she performs “alas poor Yorick.” Hamlet enters and watches her. She tears at the bark of the Willow tree and slides down it mirroring Hamlet in the beginning.
6. She follows Hamlet as he walks towards the river and he silently encourages her to jump in. She refuses, and he tries to force her physically. She pushes him into the river and watches him float away à la the Millais painting. The play ends.